News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

Data storage in magnetic media is very energy consuming. Novel materials could reduce the energy needed to control magnetic memories thus contributing to a smaller carbon footprint of the IT sector. Now an international team led by HZB has observed at the HZB lightsource BESSY II a new phenomenon in iron nanograins: whereas normally the magnetic moments of the iron grains are disordered at room temperature, this can be changed by applying an electric field.

A layer of red phosphorus in rechargeable lithium metal batteries can signal when damaging dendrites threaten to create a short circuit. The strategy, which does not require a third electrode, could help bring more powerful lithium metal batteries to market.

A study by German scientists from Jena and Hamburg shows that artificial intelligence (AI) can substantially improve our understanding of the climate and the Earth system. Especially the potential of deep learning has only partially been exhausted so far. In particular, complex dynamic processes can be better described with the help of AI. As a result, climate and Earth system models will be improved, with new models combining AI and physical modeling.

Organic semiconductors are lightweight, flexible and easy to manufacture. But they often fail to meet expectations regarding efficiency and stability. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) are now deploying data mining approaches to identify promising organic compounds for the electronics of the future.

Metal halide perovskites are regarded as next generation materials for light emitting devices. A recent joint-research co-led by the scientist from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has developed a new and efficient fabrication approach to produce all-inorganic perovskite films with better optical properties and stability, enabling the development of high colour-purity and low-cost perovskite light-emitting devices (LEDs) with a high operational lifetime.

A new study shows teams can increase the chance of successful land reclamation by first collecting soil data at short intervals. More collections can also lead to significant cost savings.

A device that could convert wave energy into electricity has been demonstrated in scaled trials at the University of Edinburgh's circular testing tank, FloWave.

Sustainable heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, such as those that harness low-enthalpy geothermal energy, are needed to reduce collective energy use and mitigate the continued effects of a warming climate. In a paper publishing on Feb. 12 in the SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, Miguel Hermanns and Santiago Ibáñez use asymptotic expansion techniques to study the harmonic thermal response of vertical geothermal boreholes in such systems to sub-annual harmonic excitations.